Pick of the Week 9

Summer 2016 is a lively one - EU referendum & 52% want to leave, Farage goes nuclear in Brussels, increase in overt racism, footie team in disgrace, Dodgy Dave resigning, probation services traded like Panini football cards ("got, got, want, need, got"), Labour in meltdown, Chilcott Report due 6 July...

I fear the narcissistic political navel gazing of both major political parties - fuelled by the venal media industry - whilst so many dreadful things are happening around them means the UK can never be taken seriously again. Friends around the world are asking me if Daesh might have poisoned the UK water supply with LSD.

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Wahaay! Gove stabs Boris in the back & puts up for PM, then May kicks Boris in the watercannons! And its only 10:30am...

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Working Links must have been near broke to sell themselves out to a venture capital firm. They must have some contract ownership protection with the Government or they would have been gone. It is clear to many that the German involvement means that they own WL and now the profits as they can fund the dismissals agenda then grab the salaries while service users can sod off. Edifying government subsidy back into Europe aren't we supposed to be out?

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The UK govt owned one third of Working Links. The statement refers to this rather than the 'Golden Share' which the govt retains in the CRC's.

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Aurelias and WL can speak with forked tongues and try to spin doctor everything but please don't expect intelligent and well educated people to swallow your bullshit. 'An exciting stage in our history'. What utter crap, do you think we were born yesterday! Absolutely disgraceful that Noms/MoJ have allowed this and the CRC managers just meekly allow it and echo hollow statements about positive opportunities. Aurelius and WL have absolutely no interest in the service users or in public protection. It is all about profit, spin and dirty dealing. How can the government allow our once proud public services to be sold, stripped down and re-sold in this tawdry manner? We are being trafficked and sold to the highest bidder. How can we be expected to do our job and protect the public under these circumstances? When will the government step in and put an end to this travesty of justice? Sadly I have little faith given the complete and utter shambles that the tories have left us in.

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WL letter to staff on Friday morning advising staff not to worry following Referendum result, followed in less than 3 working days with emergency early morning phone call to CRC Director. Was on annual leave today so unaware of staff phone call from CEO at 9.15am. Did anyone listen to it?

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Only heard the last few mins! A lot of ashen faces! We are already coping with so much change and more to come with TR. The thing that annoys me is the mask they put on, pretending it is all good news when we know basically WL had overstretched themselves and sold out to the highest bidder who has a beady eye on more lucrative prison contracts and will sell us on when they get those, maybe for a pound!

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My God this is shocking. Your depiction of that (G4S) meeting brings to mind some kind of mafia type leadership. And reference to human beings as 'products and goods'! Does that include the end product of deceased prisoners because we all know that suicide rates have gone through the roof. Human rights atrocities and a complete lack of humanity. Blatant cover ups and lies. We desperately need to put humanity at the heart of running prisons and probation. Current private sector have no interest in public protection either, it is off the menu!

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The 'acceptable' side of human trafficking? You would not condone a group locking people up, assaulting and verbally abusing them, keeping them in solitary for long stretches and ignoring their deteriorating mental state, allowing them to take harmful drugs! Unless they have a government contract and shareholders. Then it's ok! Shame on the government and shareholders!

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I have no faith that the current government will do anything to address this. If there is a major incident they might pull them out of a particular prison but that is all. They don't want to hinder the free market economy! One day however when there is a change of government there will be an enquiry and the full truth will come out just as the truth is going to come out with the Chilcott report.

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I could relate to it, of course, but agree it was not clear if PSO or PO. Please can this title be changed? It sounds as if he just walked into this job one day! Before I qualified as PO I had already worked with challenging group, young people in care. You do need to be emotionally strong in thus job. Also I recently spoke to a retired PO who was the risk management trainer. Note his final comment to me: 'statistically it is more often than not the so called low risk or 'green' cases that commit a serious offence resulting in investigation'. We would do well to remember that in a time when training is scarce and staff with the least experience could be left managing those so called low risk cases that can overnight morph into the subject of our worst nightmares!

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12 one-to-one appts, but "I spend more time documenting what I’ve done, detailing the intricacies of people’s lives and writing reports for courts and prisons, than I spend doing practical and helpful things for and with people."

12 x 30 mins is 6 hours, leaving 1 hour for recording contacts on 12 cases, referrals for programmes, all the "reports for courts & prisons", etc. Or...

12 x 15 mins is 3 hours, leaving a more realistic 4 hours for paperwork - IF the computer system is working. I would guess most service users find 15 mins the more accurate figure; and what can be done in 15 mins? Tick a box or two, perhaps?

Sadly I'm tempted to agree, i.e. some kind of pseudo-reality puff piece. And equally I share view about the naiive simplicity of attitude - we know that DV work, mental health issues, child protection or any of the issues raised by offending or a perpetrator's background can & do cause upset or distress. Professional supervision by experienced practitioners, if not managers, (sorely lacking in CRCs) should be available for precisely this reason, not just to dump on staff for missing targets. A recent post on this blog touched on this issue.

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A complete load of twaddle in my view. Working for the CRC and writing reports or working for NPS? must be in Court then...wait a minute Court officers don't hold cases. Not sure why they did this but for me it's saying that any Tom, Dick or Susan can walk in off the streets and do the job without training or experience!

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An imposter has written this - no way can a CRC case manager have up to 12 appts a day. Our reporting instructions are once per fortnight for the first 8 weeks and professional judgement thereafter but generally it's onto monthly then 8 weekly. In addition let's remember a caseload of 60 will no doubt have about 20 in custody so only 40 'active' cases to manage, take into account those in breach or on warrant and we are down to between 30 - 40 active cases. I have plenty of time to spend quality time and follow up referrals etc so whoever wrote the piece above is not managing their time properly.

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I think you will find that each CRC is doing things differently so we cannot speak for everyone. I am a PO with 50 cases. Only 4 in custody, 2 sentenced and 2 on remand for further alleged serious offences. Majority of my cases are DV now, so yes that does come with issues. I believe the article writer is a PSO or he/she would have more challenging cases! In one year I have risk escalated approx 5 cases from medium to high. This has involved further incidents of DV, child cruelty and GBH. I have made use of clinical counselling. CRC PO's and PSO's are managing risk on a daily basis. It is challenging and skilled work and the government hand it all over to unkilled staff and private companies at their peril.

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I'm very worried about a recent development in purple futures CRC. There is to be a quarterly audit covering the case has been adequately managed with: risk; contact; flaggers; sentence plan; enforcement. A random case file is to be selected and Delius and Oasys cross-referenced with the case by a senior colleague. If any concerns a further 5 random cases will be audited to see if there is a pattern in the poor management of cases or to see if the original file was a 'one off'. If there are concerns with the other 5 cases then capability is to be commenced! Fortunately for me I work with reasonable managers but if you're in an office where your face doesn't fit or whatever then this is the ideal way to manage people out of the company.

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Clearly nothing to worry about here. The PF Interchange Managers are so far behind in their knowledge about case management they will struggle to even know what they are looking for to even hold anyone to account. Their lack of experience with regards sentence planning and or case management etc etc are legendary, most are out of their depth. If you are doing what you are supposed to do, nothing to worry about.

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As if we're not under enough pressure. I've seen this on our Intranet - its basically a bean-counting exercise and giving someone in Head Office a justification for their scale 5 post. NAPO should be all over this.

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TTG is laughable; interventions are diminished, operating fewer accredited programmes less frequently with less experienced tutors and are more difficult to get to; the under 12 month cohort is an exercise in seeing how fast the revolving door can revolve before it comes off altogether; lean operating models = operating substandard, deprofessionalised or unsafe practices on a shoestring.

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Enrolled another guy on to a programme - waiting list so long I've no alternative but to take the Order back to court to extend so that this can happen. 40+ mile weekly round trip for him to attend the Programme for 18 weeks and it's ridiculous.

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Travel has always been a problem in areas like Devon and Cornwall, Northumbria etc. Nevertheless, it is clearly a fact that some areas have closed offices and people who used to go to local offices to receive a service, they now have to travel much greater distances. Also, timings of groups are compromised so the inconvenience to individuals is increased, thereby putting in barriers to successful completion. 

Long journeys ARE a problem but not just because of the inconvenience to individuals who live a long way from offices. Long journeys at the end of a working day with no time to eat, no refreshments on arrival. finishing late and then having a long journey home etc means offenders START the groups tired and will inevitably struggle to gain anything from them. Obviously, that no longer matters as the completion and resultant funding is the only objective that is now considered. If they actually benefit from them, well, that seems to be a fortunate by product rather than an intended consequence of attendance.

In short, you can justify any form of bad practice if your attitude is 'they committed an offence and this is the consequence/if you can't do the time....'. The purpose used to be to facilitate rehabilitation not to punish, restrict and just be mean to them because they deserve it.

As an ex-SPO (I took redundancy), I am simply appalled at the continued efforts of some to justify these cadaverous remains of service delivery. It's crap because it is underfunded and managed entirely by people who do not understand the work and who certainly don't value it. There will always be pockets of good practice and quiet little victories but, in terms of a strategic approach to working with offenders, what is left after TR is almost entirely a universal disgrace.

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Yep, in our area band 4 to be cut by 50% and band 3 just about the same. Looks like phone interviews on the way for the majority of clients. 

Re 3E - Any NPS people been given any indication of how many posts will be available in each section - ie three x band 4 and five x band 3 etc. Seems to me that this information is needed before making an informed decision. If it goes to competitive interview and, for instance, all OM posts are filled, then you face being shipped elsewhere. This could cause issues if care responsibility or travel issues.

Lastly, and I apologise if this seems insensitive given colleagues up and down the country are losing jobs, but the E3 guidance to managers says that whilst VER is not being offered, even if it were, then it would be a civil service scheme. Hence only backdated to the split in June 2014. How is it they are cherry picking? Local gov pension scheme, trusts policy on maternity but we are civil servants when it comes to losing all your years service if VER and also for being moved God knows where, in what ever job, if you are viewed as surplus. Give us the option of VER.

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There's supposed to be consistency in supervision? I had three supervisors before I left custody. All I got was an introductory letter from No 1, No 2 turned out to be a royal pain in the butt from the moment she took over and virtually all her decisions were over turned on legal challenge as she had made them on incorrect information she had been told by my legal team was incorrect. No 3 lasted until TR came in and she left (and I breathed a huge sigh of relief when she did as she was worse than No 2). No 4 is nice enough but to be honest an ineffectual idiot with some very weird ideas of the prison system and people. Not exactly consistency and this was pretty much all before probation was privatised.

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Consistency hasn't been present since the fiddling around & transfer to Trust status etc began some 10 years ago. I'd suggest you set yourself a specific goal you want to achieve & work whoever is supervising your release into helping you get there. They'll be so overworked with so many other hopeless, demanding cases they'll be grateful for your initiative.

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Actually I've learned the best policy regarding probation is to say as little as possible, never volunteer anything and never discuss anything personal. It makes "supervision" a lot less stressful for both of us. It also points up the fact that probation is now simply a tick box exercise with any idea of actual help long out of the door.

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I am surprised there has been very little comment on the post E3 briefings taking place at the moment across the country as they begin to prepare staff for what is, in effect a massive sifting process to weed out colleagues who do not 'match' the current profile of the new E3 landscape. Don't be fooled, wake up, do something about it - the future of the service is at stake. What's NAPO and UNISON doing about it ? The E3 body count, for those unfortunate to end up on the redeployment register will make unpalatable reading as any assurance given that redundancies will not apply will look hollow as it dawns on those affected that it's simply a fig leaf to promote greater effeciencies, and flexibility and turnover at a time of limited resources. I am resigned to think that with all its emphasis on 1:1 preferences, it is sadly time to acknowledge that the service we once cherished has irrevocably changed for the worse.

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Prisoners received minimal contact and service from community PO's so change is inevitable. But progress will be dependent on prisons being able to deal with change instead of daily chaos that currently persists. End to end management was an aspiration that was never going to work and didn't.

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I have already received my notification of 121 via a formal letter which was e-mailed to me. There is a form to fill in which you have to put any considerations you wish to be taken into account in respect of relocation. My 121 is booked in with my manager for next week. A colleague in the prison told me they are expecting lots more OM's in April so I am expecting some relocations.

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On a slightly different topic, news from SWM CRC where a third of POs in Staffordshire/Stoke are facing compulsory redundancy. The axe has been hanging over PO's heads for over 7 months with those deemed to be 'at risk', heading towards their 3rd stage interview this Friday. At 4 pm yesterday they all received an e mail stating that these interviews had been 'postponed indefinitely'. What the hell does this mean? Will there or won't there be redundancies and if not why all the shannanigans over the past 7 months with colleagues facing the prospect of the dole queue on a daily basis (Stoke is still in the depths of an economic turndown, not an easy area to find employment). 

Colleagues are baffled by this turn of events and from senior managers there is deafening silence. Does this mean no redundancies or is this just a temporary stay of execution? If the former, does this mean that the CRC has cocked up the figures and needs these PO posts? Or, as is suspected, has the CRC run out of money to fund redundancy payments and needs to find a cheaper means of shedding staff? POs and their colleagues need answers from these conniving and cruel senior execs. The staff in Staffs/Stoke are deserve better treatment than this.

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On the prison walkouts - I understand the only way the prison service addresses the issue is to seek an injuction to force officers back onto the landings. The longer it takes the longer they stay out . Holme House was locked down until dinnertime, meanwhile every operational and non operational governor is redirected to help with essentials like food and meds.... The Government would rather this happen than meaningfully addressing very serious safety issues.....shame.

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Whether the unions are in dispute or not here in the SW Working Links/Aurelius are moving fast now! Staff are already coping with sudden moves to inferior offices and having to see service users in public spaces. IT/delius being unavailable much of the time. Now suddenly the timescale for these one to one interviews is about 7 weeks, just when many will be on holidays! Looks more like 50% cuts to band 3, 4 and 5. Senior staff have at least stopped pretending everything is 'positive change' now they are also going to be reduced by by 50%! So suddenly we have gone from 'cuts won't be as bad as expected because many have already gone to another 50%'. Never mind the unions, why are the MoJ sat on their not unsubstantial sterns and allowing this to happen? We might as well scrap the whole notion of community sentences and just ask NPS court staff to give people SSO's in all cases without supervision!

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MoJ knew this was coming in all CRCs so they're not bothered. The MoJ/NOMS 'CRC police' are not interested. Gove is distracted by his own vainglorious ambition. NOMS are also rudderless vis-a-vis probation with Allars' jumping ship.

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This whole 1-1 charade absolutely mirrors the TR debacle ... Do you want CRC or NPS? Your decision but we aren't giving you any information to make an informed choice. This is just the same, Court or stay in your role. Prisons haven't been mentioned yet but that is where a lot of POs are heading. I understand that the plan is to increase PO numbers in prison. There is absolutely no way they are gonna send me down that route until they have made prisons safer for staff. Our local prisons, S Yorks, are losing the battle with Spice. Not enough prison officers and prisoners off their heads on drugs ... Not a good combo and certainly not an environment that I'm going to work in. Working in NPS with stupidly high caseload, crap IT system, when it's working, low morale and high levels of staff sickness is bad enough. I cannot believe that this is a career that I was once proud of. It is an utter disgrace. Shame on the government for putting us in this abysmal situation.

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These redundancies are no surprise to NOMS/MoJ as they would have been in the original bids. The arguments being put forward are the same as those that were presented in the Sodexo areas. They don't understand the issues and don't have the slightest interest in the concerns of NAPO or of staff in general. They want their money. That is the only real consideration and everything else is secondary to that. Maintain the illusion and keep the criticism away from the Minister. That is the only mantra. Good practice and effectiveness are entirely peripheral.

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The tribulations in the South West are typical of what's going on elsewhere: a refusal by management to engage in collective discussions with the unions and an insistence on one-to-one meetings with individuals. In effect this removes one of the workers' protections: that afforded by collective agreements. The union still has it's voice: it can issue advice to members about what to say in meetings, etc, but we all know that in such meeting the power lies with the management representative.

The unions can still bark and talk up their role, but there is no bite and so management have an unrestrained hand to do whatever they wish. The CRCs are making it abundantly clear that the unions are no longer relevant to their plans. In the CRCs you are on your own - 1 to 1 - and that's how it is in every workplace when individuals fail to act in solidarity.

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You're naïve 1-1 unfairly and innapropriatly conducted outside of a recognised collective agreement that results in dismissals will automatically become an unfair dismissal claim. Legal process contract of employment. It is not all management owned. The trade unions in this arena seem to be carefully playing their hand and from what I understand the General Secretary and his team are doing a skilled job. Your post smacks of management support are you pro this destructive attempt to rid skilled staff.

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I am afraid that you are the naive one. Sodexo easily bypassed collective agreements and chose to deal with individuals and not the unions. This talk of tribunals is hot air. I am not aware of a single tribunal thus far despite all the shenanigans over the past 12 months or so. Stop telling us how Napo is skillfully playing its hand - we have heard all this before as well and all I see is a losing hand. The CRCs don't give a toss about collective agreements.

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The above replies seem to suggest there is no point in continuing to fight the CRC's despite the fact that the three branches in WL have now come together to lodge a dispute. I think it is great that this has happened and shows that some are still attempting to act in solidarity to beat this.

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Mr Wiseman is a puppet dependant on what he is told by WL Management and their Lawyers. The fact is whatever has gone before there is now a dispute in place and yes WL are going ahead with their plans, BUT NAPO/UNISON & GMB SCCOP are in this together.

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E3 Efficiency, Effectiveness and Excellence - Focus on the new OM Custody Model

Whilst there is merit harmonisation, the work being done on E3 is not just about 'after the door has bolted' This spells out C3 Cuts, Cuts, Cuts for the NPS.With harmonisation of processes as well as job roles, coupled with 'estates strategy' where NPS are finding themselves rattling around buildings that previously held all Probation staff, workforce planning as well as the 'OM Custody Model' the time is approaching where the anticipated cuts within NPS will be hitting home.

The new custody model talks of 'greater continuity between court, prison and community OM work'. A principle with the new OM Custody Model is 'the responsibility for custodial OM should sit with the prison', therefore there is going to be a shift of staffing resource from the community into the prison, with case management responsibility firmly sitting with the prison. The role for SPOs within the prison looks to diminish unless the Head of OMU is competed for and ultimately reporting to the prison governor.

Reading between the lines this smells of further reduced roles for NPS staff in prisons (we have already seen programme tutors in prison as well as PSOs roles in the prison going) specifically the New OM Model implies loss of senior NPS roles in prison and potentially staff transferring over to the Prison Service. The proposed development will be out for consultation with Probation, Prison Unions and staff to design and plan this new 'specialised service'; is it any wonder that previous prison Governors are being drafted in to CRCs particularly where there is a private prison nearby. Watch this space, the next few months could be crucial, hopefully NAPO will not sleep walk into collusion on this one, this isn't just about about roles/responsibilities/harmonisation, it's about C3 Cuts, Cuts, Cuts.

As I wave goodbye to colleagues in the CRC who are losing their jobs, it strikes me this is the start of a long road of goodbyes which will cover CRCs, NPS, YOS and Prison staff without taking into consideration cutbacks due for the Civil Service in general. We need to keep a close eye on what is happening in all the respective unions if we are to be one step ahead of these changes and be United, when you read E3 look behind the rhetoric and you will see 3C Cuts!

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Cherish your SPO for they are a dying breed. New plans under discussions to replace them with the social service model of the Senior practitioner - therefore getting all the SPO tasks done on the cheap whilst still holding a caseload. ACE's are also in the firing line as their salaries are equivalent to 1.5 POs.

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Probation used to have Senior Pracs at Band 5 around 10yrs ago. Was one until role disbanded in favour of more SPO's and Band 6 Managers. Later, in 2011 was down-banded to Band 4! Whatever suits the day and no real rationale for pay bands. Suppose these new SP's will be at Band 4 and supervising PSO's, along with own caseload of higher risk CRC cases? SPO roles at risk.

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Michael Spurr: It was a huge part of this programme and one that, I think, that had general support. There were lots of parts of this programme that were not generally supported but, in Parliament, and actually professionally, and with our trade union partners, everybody recognised the importance of trying to do something different with this short sentence offender group."

Salesman: "Do you see how quickly & effectively the snake oil soothes your ailments? Everyone agrees it is a miraculous cure."

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Giga-shambles from Day One! The left hand and the right hand in our CRC clearly don't even belong to the same organism, as we have received various contrary emails over the last two weeks regarding third-stage redundancy meetings (originally mooted in January 2016) - everything now put on hold yet again, at the eleventh hour - our 'owners'/managers/failed bankers or whatever they are have only had six months to get the actual figures right.. words fail me - any vague notion of Probation as a career is in tatters. How much worse can it actually get - really?! Useless gits with no idea of the work we do.

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Uh? So we now have an unexpected & sudden high rate of sexual & violent crime than ever before? A significant & fundamental change of offending behaviour that was neither predicted nor accounted for by the highly paid consultants & experts who drew up the TR contracts?

And this is why TTG is failing... Because TR is a crock of PR shite. Their lies are finding them out at the expense of everyone else, i.e. loss of employment, loss of professional service provision & loss of public money. Spurr even says they are about to hand even more public money over to the CRCs by way of "compensation" because of the IT f*ck-up. They weren't so keen to honour the EVR package for long-serving professionals. Arseholes!

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The recent upgrade of Delius is being blamed for terminated cases raising from the dead!! Printed my caseload & enforcement off today and lots of blasts from the past appear. haha

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Reminds me of the post-war reconstruction in Iraq. They wanted regime change, so they go in and rip out the infrastructure of a probation service that was working – and winning awards. They promise that their rehabilitation revolution will lead to a better world. It is plainly not working. The probation service has been eviscerated, morale is rock bottom; the prison service is in anarchic mood and finally, making a stand, complaining that the Noms will not engage in meaningful consultation on proposed reforms under E3. The leaders of this unholy mess scratching around to offer explanations and justifications to a Parliamentary committee. These leaders, like naked emperors, have lost their grip on the system and can only speculate how CRCs will come up with innovative solutions as they cut jobs and then recruit temporary case managers, as Purple Futures are doing in Hampshire. Meanwhile, dear leader Gove becomes a figure of scorn and derision.

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I have to say you have nailed it. Let us take PF as the supposedly great CRC provider. I attended, along with hundreds of my collegues, in April 2015, an event that was held in a very plush, well known racecourse by Yvonne Thomas and her bright young things who produced a full days worth of slick corporate presentations promising a brave new world. This was to be service user focused, inovative offence reducing models; all backed up by a 21st century IT system to be envied. 

Well, let us, the PF family take a look see. 15 months later, we still have no IT system except that trusty old warhorse N Delius. I really need say no more about that pony!! So as inovative POs/PSOs (Senior Case Managers and Case Managers we are now titled), what do we do? We revert back to our tried and trusted Mark 1 laptops (notepad and pen to the layman). At least the good old bic does not break down and when I drop my mark 1, it can still function. Even when my client spills his coffee on it, still it works. 

The real estate that supports us is still in development, some offices have been stripped out and are nothing but shells, yet we still deliver this new inovative interchange model in shabby environments. Without irony, humour, and good old belief in 'probation' we would have all gone home by now, but we persevere. Maybe they will deliver, maybe not, who knows. The truth is that PF has at best been treading water for the best part of 2 years or at worst..... well I leave that for others to comment.

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Most of this is rubbish! The usual suits in their ivory towers (ivory being a good metaphor for corruption) spin doctoring and trying to persuade people that their so called new flexible approaches work. Come and shadow a CRC PO at the coal face. Compare how things were only 6 months ago with the titanic rupturing of our organisation now. Follow me into our new premises where I see service users with complex problems amongst the general public who stare and point when they present with typical behaviour associated with ADHD, asbergers, mental health condition, drug dependency etc. Very little private interview space. 

Service user with paranoia who cannot cope with new interview space and waiting in full view of public. IT crashing and cutting out after 4 hours, colleagues off sick and being left to manage on my own. Being told that cuts will mean half of us are going! I can cope with change, I am still here, but please do not insult us by telling us 'this is for the best and being done to improve standards and flexibility'. The suits all know this is not working and austerity is not working but they carry on regardless. 

The trusts DID work and they were managed by chiefs that we could respect, they had the authority to speak out and they were in touch with their staff. Now we have puppet CPO's at CRC who appear to be either completely demoralised or who have been brainwashed by their corrupt financial employer, Sodexo or WL or is that now Aurelius?! Once they have got you to do their dirty work you will be deleted along with 50% of the workforce. Once the MoJ /NOMS finally realise the game is up, they will be faced with a completely asset stripped organisation and workforce and it will take decades to recover! 

There is no internal training provision now, not even in basic risk assessment. Who will want to train to be a PO under the current system? I predict that in the future we will need to return to how it was 20 years ago, PO training coming under the umbrella of social work training with probation placements and additional syllabus and an expectation that you work in related field before you train, not just fresh from uni!

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This insistence that the mix of cases has changed really gets my goat. It hasn't! They counted wrongly in the first place and simply did not understand what the word reoffending means. It's a small number of people committing a lot of crime. They hadn't worked out that the number of sentences passed is not the same as the number of people in the system. I know of one case now subject to 12 PSS licences. That revolving door has started spinning an awful lot faster since the introduction of supervision for under 12 month cases.

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I remember Michael Spurr at a Napo AGM – pre-TR - telling us that like it or loath it, TR was the will of a democratically elected government and therefore it was his and our duty to implement. There was a reasonable logic to his position, but his position was superficial. It was not his job, like intelligence analysts telling prime ministers what they wanted to hear, to do likewise with his political masters, it was his job as a senior civil servant, to make it crystal clear that TR as envisaged would not work and at the minimum it should be piloted. Spurr is not a stupid man, he knew it would result in fragmentation and poor coordination, he also knew that without additional funding TTG would fail. What is the point of paying senior civil servants high salaries if all they do is mechanically follow orders? The Spurrs of this world are ten a penny – unlike those civil servants with principles like Elizabeth Wilmhurst, Clive Ponting, Katharine Gun, Edward Snowdon.

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We in the NPS are having a different but equally bad time of it with the headless rush to implment E3 with all involved having the knowledge that it's about deskilling staff and getting it done on the cheap....still the mess that HMPS is in will surely put it back another 18 months or so.

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NPS, can you be more specific about what the effect of E3 is? Ok, I can understand you are worried but my own ex colleagues at NPS are still sat in decent offices with plenty of spare interview rooms now that CRC have been booted out. They are not sat in a hot and claustrophobic room with insufficient desk space and NO disabled access so colleagues with disabilities are unable to go! They are also not in a shop front without toilets and have to use public loos across the road! They always have private interview rooms and do not have to see service users in public buildings! How can this even be allowed NOMS/MOJ. Hello...are you listening? CRC staff are being forced to interview offenders about their DV offences in libraries! You don't believe me, then ask WL! There will be alot of staff ready to spill the beans when they are made redundant so no longer have to fear upsetting the boss!

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So Noms/MoJ. Are you happy for me to go ahead and cancel some of my appointments over the summer period because DV offenders now report to CRC in a large public library which is likely to put them and victims at risk as they could turn up at same time? I am assuming that there was a risk assesment in terms of suitability of buildings and that you approved? Also, if an offender is angry and leaves suddenly, I have to follow them out of the room and swipe my card to let them out, thus putting myself at risk. When someone gets hurt in these public reporting centres or open booths, MoJ/Noms will be taken to the cleaners and get what they deserve. It is only a matter of time before something errupts and your TR shambles will come to light for all to see.